A few weeks ago I did a “mailbag” video/blog and ran a poll on which product(s) you’d like me to review.

There was a clear winner right from day one. Pi-Supply’s Papirus Zero took first place and held it by a comfortable margin for three weeks. So I’m going to have a play with that one first and share my findings with you.

PapiRus Zero

Initial Impressions

Both PaPirus Zero Screens

It’s a nice dainty little display. In my review pack there were two displays of different sizes; 1.44 inch and 2.0 inch. It just so happens that the height of these screens is an almost perfect match for the Pi Zero. The wider of the two doesn’t quite fill a pHAT sized board, so they both fit nicely on the PCB.

The 1.44″ is 128 x 96
The 2.00″ is 200 x 96

Both have a pixel density of 111 dpi with square pixels 0.229 x 0.229mm

They are very thin indeed. I got the calipers out and measured 0.95mm thickness of the TFT itself. The PCB and GPIO connector add significant “bulk”, but overall, the size is typical of a pHAT.

It also has a built-in LM75 temperature sensor and 5 buttons connected to GPIO ports.

Data Sheet Info

According to the data sheets they are… “active matrix TFT, Electronic Paper Display (EPD) panel. The panel has such high resolution (111 dpi) that it is able to easily display fine patterns. Due to its bi-stable nature, the EPD panel requires very little power to update and needs no power to maintain an image.”

They also feature…

Ultra low power consumption

Super Wide Viewing Angle – near 180°

Extra thin & light

SPI interface

Hardware Setup

Hardware setup is easy. You just connect the screen to the PCB using the ribbon cable and connector, then secure the other end with one of the supplied sticky pads, or using a little bit of tape (as I’ve done to enable swapping over the screens). Connecting the PCB to the Pi requires care to avoid putting pressure on the screen. It would be easy to crack the thin glass.

Software Installation

The first generation PaPirus was widely criticised for being hard to install and use. Is the Papirus Zero any better? I’m delighted to say that it was for me. I just followed the installation instructions on GitHub and was delighted to see that “it just worked”. I’m always a happy bunny when that happens – even though it ought to be ‘normal‘.

Built-in Demos

There are several demo programs in the PaPirus software installation. Each one is run from the command line using sudo xxx-yyy…

papirus-clock Is a basic clock demo showing time and date. It updates once every five seconds from the Pi’s system time.

PaPirus Zero clock demo

papirus-gol runs Conway’s game of life.

PaPirus Zero GoL demo

papirus-temp displays the temperature of the LM75 temperature sensor on the PCB.

PaPirus Zero temperature demo

papirus-buttons press one of the five onboard buttons and it will show which button you pressed on the screen. (This worked partially for me. Not all of the buttons ‘did something’ and the order was not quite as expected.)

PaPirus Zero buttons demo

Unfortunately, these last three examples didn’t work at all for me…

papirus-snakes A snakes game

papirus-system Show system information

papirus-framepush Push framebuffer to screen

What Else Can You Do With It?

There are Python and command line interfaces for controlling the PaPirus Zero screen output. You can display text or images limited only by your imagination and the the shape, size and monochromatic nature of the screen. You must run the scripts as root to be able to control the screen.

The 3 demos (papirus-snakes, papirus-system, papirus-framepush) not working is because they are not implemented (look at the source code).
The button demo is written for the larger Papirus hat, which only has 4 buttons and connected to the GPIO in a different manner (look at the schematics on the PaPiRus github).
In general the software on the PaPiRus github could use some TLC.

Hi I was wondering if your happy with your PiZero Screen few month later ?
I’m also looking for “good looking” Price Tag with update OTA, this good be a very good workaround, not as powerfull as a Pi but may be cheaper ?

Hi, just saw these. Do you know if they are compatible with larger (ie EPD060/040) as have a broken PRS600 and spare screen here. The problem is that the original software on the PRS600 sucks and does not support wireless anything, not even memory cards larger than 4GB. For that matter couldn’t even get it to work with a 2GB Memory Stick which is supposed to be a standard part. Thanks!